Page 79 - 2003 - Atlantic Islands

next room contained the bed on which Napoleon died. The bed was moved into this

room when he was in the last weeks of his terminal illness. The wallpaper here was

white with a green double-diamond pattern fairly widely spaced.

The bed was surprising in its smallness, but the guide told us that it wasn’t because

Napoleon was so short, but that all beds during that time were short because folks

did not sleep flat; instead they propped themselves up on many pillows so that only

the leg length really needed to be accommodated, not the torso and head. In this

room, there was also a copy of the death mask done by the Italian physician who last

attended the Emperor.

Our guide addressed the many theories and controversies surrounding the death of

Napoleon at the comparatively young age of 52. He said that the idea of his having

been poisoned by arsenic is not considered acceptable for several reasons: first,

cosmetics and wallpaper and pastes contained arsenic at that time; second, hair was

preserved as a keepsake routinely and it was placed in arsenic solutions for longtime

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